Apple announced their much-rumored in-house Maps application at WWDC today.

Maps includes a lot of great new features, including 3D buildings, turn-by-turn navigation, local search with some back-up from Siri. Maps also includes live traffic information that's anonymously crowd-sourced from iPhone and iPad owners. The live traffic data will also update your estimated time of arrival as you progress on your journey. Your navigation view will also show on the lock screen which is really nice. Asking your iPhone "are we there yet?" will even work through Siri, but you'll likely be spending more time using Siri for local search, such as to find the nearest gas station.

How do you figure it will be useless? Thats how most of the mapping apps are on both android and ios. I agree that its not the best solution all the time, but its better than the 1.6 gigs worth of stuff I have with TomTom. Half of which I will never even use.

I use MotionX GPS Drive. While I'm not particular about any interface for turn-by-turn directions (i'll get use to any of them given enough time), I do really like one feature of it. You specify a "cache" size of up to 2 GB. GPS Drive will download maps as needed, but then keep them in it's cache. Once that fills up, the oldest map tiles goes. By adjusting that size as appropriate for your use, I have found that to be a great balance. Don't waste too much space, preload when need to (you can "simulate" the drive to preload the map), and have local maps when no data exists.

And then call it "revolutionary" and "new" AGAIN, AGAIN!
Like they haven't copied enough from Android already... How is that pull down notification bar working for you apple fanboys?
Seriously, they should've just been honest and called this Android instead of iOS6....
Oh wait, apple be honest.... Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

Xandroid - Why are you here? Do you have anything new to add? Are some of these features (I see your responses on other articles on other features) done today on Android? Yup. My buddy right next to me, a loyal android user said the same as you, but added "I just wish the android solution had that Apple polish and ease of use" - Apple isn't claim the idea is "magical" or "revolutionary" or what have you - but the EXPERIENCE is.
Not to mention, you do know what Android looked like before the iPhone, right? Windows Mobile/BlackBerry. So, if Apple is copying android who copied Apple, doesn't that create a circular reference?
Lastly, WHO CARES? Like what you like, let others like what they like.

Okay, don't be hatin bro... I'm not against technology and I don't really even want to argue about what's better (although I would win) or who makes it better. And you're right! Who cares what you like or what your grandma likes, thats your personal opinion and i'm not against that. There are so many companies that make phones out there and different options for everyone, but i don't go to their forums to tell them that Microsoft or Nokia or WebOS suck. However I do not like Apple. Not the iPhone in itself, that is a wonderful piece of tecnology. No, I hate Apple and all other companies that do business like them.. I hate the shady business men behind the name. I HATE THEIR SCHEMES! They would do anything to bring their competition down instead of bringing their product up. Gone are the good old days when Nokia and Motorola competed with "whos phone is better". Instead, now we have "Who has the most patents [even if they didn't actually come up with that particular feature first]" or "who has the smarter lawyers" or "The dumbest judges". It's a sad sad world that this keeps happening in........ No man, I don't hate the iPhone or the features (or lack of, depends who you ask) that it provides. I hate unfair business schemes.. It's too bad that talents and greatness don't get recognized as they did before... everything is all about the moneys now... Sorry about the rant.. Not that it matters, but I just wanted to let you know that I not being a random hater. This all just reminds me of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. If you don't know much about that, here's an awesome , short history lesson (the truth that should be taught in schools), courtesy of the Oatmeal : http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla

Everything looks amazing. From the preview, it looks like it will blow the competition away, but I agree, we have to wait to see what it's really like. If the data set & back end isn't all that great, it will end up being a fancy app that's not very usefull.....

No I'm sticking with my "Blows the competition away" HOWEVER, ONLY if i understood correctly that you can do a 3D fly over of your route. THAT feature doesn't exist anywhere else....If their 3D flyover (3C Maps Acquisition) is not intergrated with their navigation, then yea it's just playing catch-up

But imagine if you enter a route into your iPhone/iPad that you have never done B4 & was then able to virtually fly that entire route in 3D b4 leaving. Then when your driving, it would be like you’ve already driven it B4...like I said IF this is actually integrated like I read somewhere.....I'm a BlackBerry fan/user so I know all about the media making completely incorrect and/or misleading statements.

Well, it's been a year and everyone BUT Canada get's access to SIRI location stuff (where is the closest ATM, etc)..
Hey Apple! See that big country above USA? It's Canada.. we have paved roads, running water and cell phone towers too you know..

Honestly - Siri is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over hyped. Half the time - she has no idea what I am saying. The other half of the time she'll just hang there - qeueing her voice recog server for 5 minutes. I get zero utility out of that service.

Sorry to break it to you, but Apple can't hear you. They've preoccupied themselves with banning All the the phones that are better then the iPhone and are too busy at this time, please leave a message with your name and number and an ass (associate) will get back to at their sonnest convenience (next year).

hahahaha. Oh man I love the android is the victim approach. If everyone didn't blatantly copy Apple to begin with then you wouldn't have anything to say right now. Apple has said over and over that they will not be the developer for the world. This is why patents are in place. Tell everyone to quit copying and we wont have an issue. And if you try to bring up notification center, go for it, obviously Google did not have the patent on this or they would have sued as well.
Android is not the victim here.

No... you will still get the new maps. Siri will just not be integrated. You will hear Siri's voice for the turn by turn but thats also Apples voice over assistant voice. you should get full features of fly by and turn by turn direction on your device.

Sorry, but this is from the Apple website...
"Some features may not be available in all countries or all areas. Flyover and turn-by-turn navigation will be available only on iPhone 4S and iPad 2 or later. Cellular data charges may apply."

I think the biggest mistake Apple committed was not having public transit, pedestrian, bicycle directions in the new Maps app. That is a HUGE blunder. I hope ditching Google Maps wasn't the point where Apple "jumped the Shark," because right now Google Maps is looking like the far superior implementation and this is coming from a loyal iOS user...

Apple robs us of Street View, a worldwide extensive database, street level coverage of nearly every MINOR city in the world. They give us back a gimmicky 3D view WITH NO REAL PURPOSE (go ahead, TELL ME what practical purpose this will have), a mapping provider that DOES NOT COVER ALL ITS MAJOR MARKETS, and then says WE should be HAPPY?!?
Last Apple product ever for me unless Google busts out the gates with a good native iPhone app, and Apple doesn't do what they ALWAYS do and reject anything that makes them look bad. I am SICK of Apple's crap. Enough... you burned your good will. Japanese users are getting SCREWED. Japan is Apple's THIRD LARGEST MARKET BY INCOME ALONE, and we're treated worse than Canada, a country with the same population as our biggest city
Apple doesn't deserve goodwill anymore...

Lots of good points being made here I c see. Apples biggest mistake was not reaching a deal with garmin; however, that likely has more to do with Navteq and Nokia then anything else. Siri not yet fully functioning in Canada is a major failure. I believe for the most part apple realizes Android is king in Asia so they won't try too hard to compete with Asia, much like samsung isn't tying very hard for the US market eg. Samsung Galaxy 3.
once again, apple I feel is trying to convince they're loyalists that they don't need this or that.

Addendum -damn mobile version of this site. Anyway. All the features Google maps have is often used by all ios users. I am guessing apple feels most people use apps anyways which lack street view et al isn't needed but 3d view is. All I say it's another stupid move by Apple much like only adding a slight not even modest upgrade to the iPhone by introducing a puny midget. 5 inch taller screen. And they'll market it as having a larger screen so you can see more. But for me I'll be going with the competition that offers a significantly larger screen.

Google Maps on android now does bicycle directions in NYC to go along with it's excellent transit routing. This feature made the thought of switching from Android to iOS go from 'pricey but perhaps worthwhile' to 'impossible/unfeasible' for me in the near future. I will check back in 2 years when my contract is up.

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